No one knows for sure the real earnings of American corporations. In Q1 2009, according to the Federal Reserve flow of funds table F.102, after-tax profits of US non-financial, non-farm corporations, on an annual basis, were about $589.9 billion. However, about 50% of these after-tax earnings were disbursed through stock buybacks, primarily to support prices and give […]

In the working paper “The Buyback Monitor - July 2009: Corporate Stock Buyback Profits of 273 Firms from 2000 into 2009“, published on the Social Sciences Research Network, M.A. Gumport, CFA, provides further evidence that stock buybacks are not as good for investors as often touted. The following is quoted from the abstract of this […]

On July 11, 2009, in a column by Jason Zweig, the WSJ asked, “Does Stock-Market Data Really Go Back 200 Years?” Here are some quotes from this article: […]